


Hylian Lavender

by liketolaugh



Series: Lullaby for the Taken [2]
Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Autistic Link (Legend of Zelda), Caretaking, Chronic Pain, Comfort, Gen, Link (Legend of Zelda) Uses Sign Language, Link (Legend of Zelda) has Chronic Pain, Medical use of painkillers, Nonverbal Link (Legend of Zelda), Post-Canon, Protective Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:34:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29409864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liketolaugh/pseuds/liketolaugh
Summary: Zelda remembers how Link looked during their run to Fort Hateno: bone white with pain, fingers trembling even as he stayed on his feet and on his guard, rigid with tension and determination. Zelda had worried constantly, not just about her kingdom but about him, about the rips in his clothes and the burns starting to litter his skin, the way he refused to let go of his sword. By the end she had started to wonder how he was still conscious.The way he looked now, it reminded her vividly of those terrible days.
Relationships: Link & Zelda
Series: Lullaby for the Taken [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2160501
Comments: 5
Kudos: 103





	Hylian Lavender

A week and a half on her own two feet hadn’t taken the edge off Zelda’s wonder, and she couldn’t stop looking at everything – at the dark grey clouds in the sky, at the wind ruffling the leaves, at the gates to Hateno Village slowly approaching from the end of the road. Her hands were so slack on the reins of her horse that it was only the stallion’s good training that kept them on the road.

Link had been very indulgent about all of it, though he didn’t let her wander more than a horse’s length away from him – instead, he went with her, keeping a wary eye on their surroundings as if he were still her personal guard. She could have laughed. They’d both come so far from when they were children, but some things never changed, and it looked like Link’s protectiveness was one of them.

“How is Hateno?” Zelda asked eagerly, only her need to look around keeping her from going on ahead. “Is it still busy- oh, it must be, you said it was the biggest town in Hyrule now-”

Link hummed noncommittally, but when she looked back at him, he only smiled faintly and tilted his head forward, then dropped back to put himself and his pretty silver-blue mare between her and the woods.

She went without resisting, her avid eyes finding the shapes of bokoblin through the trees, but they passed by without incident and soon her attention was recaptured by the gates.

Two large villages. Zelda could work with two large villages, especially with all of the stables, the help of their sister kingdoms, the refugees that would surely start to return when word of the fall of the Calamity spread… She shook herself, and smiled more broadly than she’d intended at the man leaning against the fence, who immediately looked flustered.

“Lovely lass you’ve brought with you, Link,” the man managed after a moment, straightening up with clear self-consciousness. “Who’s this, then?”

“My name is Zelda,” Zelda introduced herself fluidly, with a courtly nod to the man before her. “And who might you be?”

“Name’s Thadd,” the man said, settling a little and tapping his pitchfork against the ground. “I guard the village here, can’t be too careful. Link’s never brought in a thief nor a Yiga before, though, so go on through. Looks like it’s shapin’ up to rain, you’ll want to get inside.”

The last bit seemed to be directed more at Link than at Zelda, and he inclined his head at Thadd and let go of her to sign, _You should get under cover too._

“Eh, I’ll think about it,” Thadd said lightly, clearly intending to do no such thing, and Zelda smiled and preceded Link through, looking back at him.

“You never said where we were going,” she commented. Link shrugged.

 _I got a house at some point,_ he said without looking at her, carelessly dropping his reins to sign; his horse must know the way. _Pink tag construction was all set to tear it down, so when I asked they offered it at a markdown._

“That’s wonderful, Link,” she said sincerely, and guilty surprise flickered across his face in something like a wince. Zelda tried to push her feelings into her voice to make up for his refusal to meet her eyes. “It must have been immeasurably helpful for you to have a place to call home- did you spend much time there?” Link nodded hesitantly. “Good. Then it can be home to both of us.”

Link glanced up at her and gave her a small, wan smile, only lasting a flicker of a second before it started to rain and it transformed into a grimace. Zelda yelped, looking up at the clouds rolling above.

“Oh! You can show me around the village later, Link, which way is it to your house?”

Link pointed, and Zelda urgently turned her horse in the direction and coaxed him on, eager to be out of the prickling rain as it quickly grew thicker. Link was just a little behind her, tilting his head whenever she needed to check directions.

There was a stable beside the charming little house Link directed her to, and both of them headed for it; Zelda got off her horse and led it inside from on foot, while Link casually coaxed his into backing into the stable before he got off. Zelda thought she heard him groan when he did, but when she looked up, he seemed to be fine, just tired.

By the time Link was out of the stable, she was laughing, the rain cascading over her arms, draining into her hair and sticking it to her bare shoulders. She was tempted to stay out in the rain after all, to spin around and dance in the grass for a bit, but before she could say so Link was already ushering her inside, and with a silly little giggle, she went.

It was beautiful inside, warm and homey, brightly lit by a chandelier of magic candles. There was a kitchen, fully equipped and stocked, and a table with a vase of half-wilted flowers, a stairway to an upstairs with a desk and…

“Oh,” she choked out, unexpectedly struck by the weapons displays on the wall, her levity disappearing into a vacuum. “Oh, Link…”

There were a few hung that she didn’t recognize, but most of them were the weapons the other champions had once wielded: the lightscale trident Mipha favored, Daruk’s boulder breaker, Revali’s favorite eagle bow and both Urbosa’s sword of the seven and her daybreaker shield.

Zelda made a sound she didn’t know she was capable of, grief and love and longing, and wasn’t at all surprised when Link reached out and squeezed her hand, painfully gentle. Zelda swallowed.

She would not cry. Not tonight. Not for this.

She swallowed again, then turned to Link. The words on the tip of her tongue died when she got a good look at him, and her nose wrinkled in concern.

“Are you alright? You look rather pale.”

Link nodded without looking at her, and just gestured to the table. Confused, she sat down, instinctively reaching out to play with the petals of the silent princesses on the table, and looked up when she heard a drawer open.

When Link turned around, he was holding a small box in one arm, and he set it on the table before he sat down across from her. He gently moved the vase aside, and she got another good look at his face, wan and tight, before he managed to distract her again by opening the box.

Her resolution was for naught; her eyes filled with tears.

 _I wanted you to know I was thinking of you,_ Link signed slowly. _And I didn’t want you to come back to nothing._

The first thing Zelda reached in and pulled back out was a diamond circlet, so heavily enchanted that she could feel the magic pouring off it; it matched the one that Link always wore precisely. She put it on, and the protective magic seemed to almost close in around her, loving and safe.

When she looked up at Link, he just gave her another tiny smile and nodded at the box again, so she looked back inside.

There was a set of diamond and amber hairpins inside, small and finely crafted, perfect for elaborate braided buns. Her father’s diary, aged and crumbling. Her research notes. A little slip of paper with the recipe for fruitcake written down. A silent princess, pressed and dried.

She wiped at her eyes. If she had ever doubted that Link never stopped thinking of her – and she hadn’t – this destroyed any notion of it.

“I…” Zelda laughed, soft and cracked. “I don’t know what to say. Goddess, thank you. _Thank you.”_

Zelda opened her eyes again and looked at Link through blurred vision, still smiling until her face ached with it. Rain pounded loudly on the windows, the perfect counterpoint to her rolling emotions, and Link leaned heavily on the table and signed, _Of course,_ before he let his hands drop again.

She laughed a little and put everything but the circlet back in the box, and then shook her head.

It must have taken so much _work._

She looked back up, vision still foggy with tears, and then blinked them away, smile falling as she realized Link was still leaning on the table, eyes closed, face… _very_ pale.

He looked unwell.

“…Link? What’s wrong?”

Link started, pushing himself upright, looking oddly guilty again, that particular way he did when he was maybe, possibly, perhaps trying to take care of himself. _It’s nothing. It’s the rain._

He looked like he regretted that second part as soon as he signed it, and Zelda latched on, irrational panic threatening to pick up. “What about the rain?” Her father had often complained about the rain, so- “Is it a scar of yours? Does it hurt?”

Of course he’d gathered scars; he’d been running around a monster-laden Hyrule for almost two years. She could even see some of them, burns peeking up from under the collar of his shirt and his sleeves, dusky and wrinkled. She wished she’d been able to focus better while she held the Calamity in check, but everything had just been so _foggy…_

Zelda shook off her regret and focused an intent gaze on Link, who gave in after only a handful of seconds, listing against the table again.

 _The scars from before,_ Link said, in that particular way where ‘before’ meant _before the Calamity,_ so pale he was almost grey and still focused on her. _They just… they’re sore in the rain._

Sore in the rain. Zelda wasn’t sure he’d looked to be in this much pain in the first few days after the Calamity first struck.

…She hadn’t realized that the shrine hadn’t healed him completely.

Link must have read something of that in her expression, because he hastened to amend, _It’s not that bad. I’ve gotten used to it by this point. Why don’t I just…_

He cut himself off and rose to his feet, at which point Zelda realized his hands were shaking. She reached out without thinking, knocking over the vase of flowers; it would have fallen to the floor and shattered if Link hadn’t caught it, but it got his attention, and he slowed to a stop.

“Sit down,” she said, with gentleness that she didn’t think she’d ever leveled at Link before. Not looking away, Link slowly sat back down, putting the vase back on the table. Zelda straightened up, bringing to heel the composure that held her together – composure like her mother’s. “Is there something you take for the pain?”

She made the question as briskly businesslike as she could manage, but Link still flushed with humiliation and looked away. A long minute passed, and Zelda waited expectantly, trying her very hardest not to give ground. Finally, Link nodded.

Zelda held out her hand, crooking her fingers, and Link understood her flawlessly. He pressed the Sheikah slate into her hand, and she claimed it to flick through it expertly, navigating through the pages of armor and food and ingredients and weapons to find what she was looking for at the very end, amid the key items.

There were a few, which spoke deeply to how frequent a problem this was, and one of them she didn’t even recognize.

It was the Hylian lavender that really struck her.

Zelda’s mother had frequently taken lavender oil toward the end of her life, more and more as her sickness, an infection of the blood, consumed her. It had helped to keep the discomfort of her passing at bay, and the days when she had run out and been unable to get more had been memorable in their awfulness, her stillness and her rasping breath and her breathless, choked-off moans.

There was only so much that elixirs could do.

If Link, her reliable, sturdy, steadfast knight, had that in his slate, it was because he thought he would need it, and she hadn’t seen him in this much pain until days into their harrowing run to Fort Hateno.

After that, Zelda thought he’d had quite enough pain to last him a lifetime.

Decisively, she picked out the thin syringe, already fitted with a little nozzle tip, and the bottle of lavender tincture, and put them both in front of Link.

Link closed his eyes. _I’m sorry,_ he signed miserably, like being in pain was a weakness, and then reached down and fumbled with the bottle.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Zelda said immediately, watching him unscrew it blind in practiced, rough motions. She thought back to the days and weeks she’d spent studying the substance, wanting to know more about the tincture that had relieved her mother’s pain in her final days, and shook her head. “Nothing at all.”

Link’s hands were still shaking visibly when he set the bottle down and picked the syringe up, and Zelda couldn’t take her eyes off them.

“Wait,” she blurted out, and took the syringe from his trembling hand. He let her, not even looking up or opening his eyes, and she gentled her voice again, moving to sit beside him. “How much do you need?”

Link hesitated, probably processing her intentions, and then relaxed in either defeat or relief and answered softly, _One third of the syringe._

Without hesitation, she set the tip of the syringe inside the bottle, carefully lifted the plunger to one-third up the syringe, and then lifted it out, gently shaking the excess back into the bottle.

“Open your mouth,” Zelda coached, trying to sound more confident than she felt. Link did, only just enough for her to slip the syringe inside and administer the tincture, and closed it again as she pulled it back out, letting it sit. She put the supplies away again, aiming for professional, and smiled at him. “Good?”

He let a few moments pass in silence, and then opened his eyes and nodded at her, eyes soft with gratitude. _Good._

“Good,” she echoed, and then cleared her throat. “Now, tincture of lavender is very potent, and will likely leave you very sleepy, so let’s get something into you before then- do you have any, any soups in your slate? Oh, never mind, let me look. Is there something you want out of here?”

Link didn’t answer her, and when she glanced up he just gestured for her to go on, still tight and tense. She looked back down and started to navigate through his slate again.

Eventually she settled on a creamy heart soup that ought to do him good, and on second thought pulled out some seafood rice balls for herself.

She put the bowl in front of him and said, “Can you eat on your own? No, never mind, I’ll help you.”

He actually glanced over and raised an eyebrow at her, the corner of his mouth twitching in the start of amusement. _I can feed myself._

“A little help,” she bargained, eyes searching his almost desperately, and this time he shrugged, which she took as excuse enough to help him wrap his fingers around the spoon, and then hold his hand steady as he ate, one shaky spoonful at a time.

With her other hand, Zelda ate the rice balls, unable to help her soft, pleased humming; Link was a good cook with even the simplest dishes.

He slowly relaxed as he made his way through the bowl, leaning into her slightly, and she actually wasn’t sure whether it was the food, the tincture, or the simple pleasure of extended contact with another person. Zelda knew she herself was a little dizzy with the last some days.

By the end of it, though, Link was blinking in a slow, heavy-lidded way that Zelda definitely recognized, even after all these years. She let him abandon the last few spoonfuls, the utensil clattering back into the bowl, and nudged him gently until he looked at her.

The color was coming back into his face already.

“Let’s get you to bed,” she said quietly. “Is it upstairs?”

He blinked at her, slow and frowning, and then relaxed and nodded, making no move to push to his feet. In fact, his head was bobbing, threatening to fall into his bowl, and Zelda had to stifle a giggle.

“Upstairs,” she repeated, tugging on Link’s arm, and this time he went easily enough, though he swayed on his feet where he stood. Impulsively, she pressed herself to his side, pulling his arm over her shoulders so he could lean his weight on her, and encouraged, “Come on, Link. To bed. Does it still hurt?”

Link grunted, a vague sound that could have been interpreted as either a positive or a negative; still, he didn’t sound stressed, so Zelda would take that for what it was worth. She led him towards the stairway, and, carefully, they made their way up the steps, Zelda guiding every one of them.

“Left… and right… left… and right…” she found herself murmuring, with Link’s head starting to dip towards hers. “And we’re at the top, just a little further…”

She could see the rain better from the upstairs window, the way it pounded and streaked the glass, making the world in the distance hazy and faint. There was a picture hanging, one she didn’t let herself look too closely at, and a small bookshelf, half-full.

Zelda sat with Link on the bed with a soft huff from both of them, and as soon as she had, she was reaching for Link again. She undid the clasp of his hood and pulled it away, setting it across a chair to be folded up later. Then his diamond circlet, which went on the nightstand, just where he would see it when he woke up. The elastic came out of his braids, letting his hair fall loose around his shoulders, and she ran her fingers through it until it was smooth and untangled.

Link’s head tilted towards her hand, and he sighed in something like pleasure. She let it linger there for a few more moments before regretfully pulling away.

Sliding off the bed was easy, and she knelt in front of Link to carefully unlace his shoes and pull them away; he never would have let her do that if he’d been properly awake, but as it was, he just grumbled vaguely before subsiding again, crumpling onto the bed before she could even rise to coax him down.

When Zelda stood up, his eyes were open, watching her.

 _It’s over,_ he signed sleepily, like he was only just realizing it. She laughed a little, surprised when it came out slightly wet.

“Yes, Link. It’s over. You can rest.”

He sighed, closed his eyes again, and, just before he fell asleep, reached out to loosely grasp the hem of her shirt, insistent and almost childish; his grip didn’t ease even as the rest of his body relaxed.

Zelda stared at him, and when she reached up she found her cheeks were wet again.

This was her knight. This was her loyal and unbreakable guard, the one who had followed her through thick and thin, hell and high water, through death and memory loss and grief. This was Link, round-cheeked and sleep-warm, clinging to her like a child to a comfort toy.

It was odd, that this was the moment she realized there was nothing she wouldn’t do for him.

She smiled, took off the circlet her knight had given her, and crawled into bed beside him. On one last, drifting impulse, she started to murmur a prayer to Nayru, the one she recited every night before bed – this time for both her and for Link.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been thinking a lot about Zelda and Link in the weeks and months after they seal the Calamity. Specifically I've been thinking a lot about how wrecked Link is, and how nice it would be if Zelda maybe took care of him sometimes. (You know she would.)
> 
> I know BOTW 2 is coming up, and that these two have like, Things To Do, but I just think they deserve some time to recover.


End file.
